


a good heart's quiet death

by whittler_of_words



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: American Sign Language, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Suicidal Thoughts, literally titled "charisk wangst" in my docs SO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s always terrified you a little; the thought that things will always carry on, with or without you. You’d like to imagine you’re finally starting to get used to it.</p><p>...<br/>Ha. Ha ha.</p><p>That's not funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from [this](http://inkskinned.com/post/143830404629/i-dreamed-of-you-out-there-in-the-world-with) text post!
> 
> brought to you by some ramblings on tumblr. sorry in advance :')

There’s something to be said about habit.

It’s what has you tying your right shoe before your left when the laces come undone. Habit is the driving force that keeps you moving along the same paths to school every day, and you’ve dog-eared your books so many times that you go to do it on automatic even when you’ve decided you don’t want to read, actually, a new crease in the page when you put it away.

It’s habit that has your eyes blinking open seconds before your alarm can greet you with a screeching morning call. Blankets flying everywhere, you flail to shut it off.

“Good morning,” your mom greets when you get downstairs, already dressed at the kitchen table. “Did you sleep well, dear?”

 _Good morning,_ you sign in return. Still sleepy, you shuffle into the kitchen and take out a box of cereal from the cabinet. _No nightmares._

“I’m glad!” she says, delight brightening her features, and you give her a weary smile as you sit down at the table across from her. “I don’t suppose the meditation is helping?”

 _A little,_ you allow, but you think she can tell that you’re still being generous just with that, because her expression becomes more thoughtful; contemplative. You struggle to sign one-handed as you pour your cereal into your bowl. _It’s fine! You’ve already helped a lot._

“That does not mean I can’t continue helping you, Frisk,” she says gently. “There is only so much to do for nightmares, but that doesn’t mean I can excuse sitting idly by while you are in pain, does it not? _”_

You don’t have an answer for that. So you shrug, using the milk as an excuse to occupy both your hands. Look, you can’t say anything now, see? It’s fine. You don’t think she’s fooled.

“Is someone coming over today?” she asks, not doing much to be subtle about the subject change. You appreciate the sentiment either way.

One good thing about using sign language instead of your voice: you can eat while you talk and no one will get mad at you for it. _Dad is picking me up,_ you say, one hand busy stuffing your face. _We’re gonna get stuff for his garden._

A couple months ago, the slightest mention of Asgore would’ve been enough to draw her features into a badly hidden scowl. Now there’s not even a trace of _that_ , though you suspect that has more to do with her simply growing used to his presence again after a century of tending to her hatred unchecked. It’s progress. “I hope you have a good time,” she says, taking an orange from the fruit bowl on the table and starting to peel it. “Do text me if you want me to come pick you up for whatever reason, will you?”

You smile as placatingly as you know how. _I’ll be fine. But I promise to check in._

“Thank you.” Orange sufficiently peeled, she reaches across the table to place it next to your bowl. “I would finish eating soon so I could get ready if I were you. As absent-minded as that man is, I don’t think I’ve ever actually known him to be late for something in his life.”

 _OK!_

Always a fast eater, it doesn’t take very long for you to finish your food and put your dishes away. Mindful of the day’s activities, you pick out a sturdy shirt and sturdier jeans, both of them products from one of Undyne’s mall trips. The last thing you take is a blue hairpin from your jewelry box; it wouldn’t do to have your bangs in your face while you’re wrists-deep in soil.

“Frisk!” Asgore says, not missing a beat as he sweeps you up when you jump into his arms. “Are you ready for today?”

You nod enthusiastically, both of you smiling now. Asgore doesn’t wait for Toriel to come out and greet him; you’ve settled into a routine of waiting for him outside on days where he comes to pick you up, and he carries you to the car without event, already rattling off a list of flowers he’s hoping to grow.

Later, Asgore looks down at the crooked row of Tulips you’ve planted and beams bright enough to make up for a cloudy day twice-over.

Over lunch, he asks, “How is school going,” a glass of lemonade in front of both of your plates.

 _The other kids are nice,_ you admit, _and Mom is a good teacher._

“You are not having any problems?”

The concern etched into his face is almost as deep as the lines betraying his weariness. It’s difficult to see bruises under fur, but you can easily imagine the purple under his eyes, from lack of sleep or stress or something else. These past couple of months haven’t been easy.

He looks happy, though.

 _Nope!_ You’d smile, but your mouth is kind of full. He does that enough for you both anyway. _How about you? Still having problems with the store?_

“Ah, the store,” he sighs. “There are still some issues regarding the permits. It shouldn’t be too long now, though!”

 _You’ll be selling flowers in no time._ You reach to pat his hand across the table. _I know it._

“Well, if you believe it, then there’s no way it can’t come true.”

By the time the day is over, you have enough soil packed under your fingernails to last you until your next visit and then some. You’re dirty, but it’s a good kind of dirty, and you’re tired, but it’s a good kind of tired-- you _did_ things today. You’ll do more things tomorrow. If you’re being honest, it’s always terrified you a little; the thought that things will always carry on, with or without you. You’d like to imagine you’re finally starting to get used to it, though.

“Goodnight, Frisk,” Toriel says, brushing shower-damp hair out of your eyes where you lay under the covers. “I will be up for a while yet if you find you need the company, alright?”

 _Goodnight, Mom._ Your hands are slow, tired as you are, but you move them anyway. _Don’t stay up too late._

She chuckles. “I will not. Same thing to you too, little one.” With that, she nuzzles your forehead, wishing you one last “Sweet dreams!” before standing and making her way out. The door closes softly, the click quiet enough that you have to strain to hear it.

One thing you’ve noticed about Toriel is that she always shuts the door behind her.

For a while, you lay awake in bed, eyes closed and drifting but not quite. The clock on your nightstand counts out the seconds, and you count with it. Two minutes. Five. Thirteen. You’d be afraid of losing track, but you know yourself well enough by now to realize it hardly matters anyway.

When your count hits thirty, you sit up in bed and begin pulling on your boots.

The night air is cold, but you ignore it as you carefully slide your window shut behind you after you’ve vaulted out. Your breath fogs the glass. It’ll be snowing soon. Shoving your hands in your pockets, you’re careful to stick to the shadows as you begin to walk.

The mountain that greets you isn’t the same one you fell down all those years ago, but it’s close enough that you don’t care.

After a while, the incline becomes steep enough that you have to grit your teeth against the breath catching in your throat. You stumble, tripping over a rock you can’t see, and you curse the moon for not being full enough to light your way. A flashlight is and always has been out of the question. You can’t afford to be found. You can’t afford to be seen. Not here.

Something skitters in the brush behind you, and you freeze.

This should be far enough.

The ground catches you like it always does when you fall on your back. There’s something poking uncomfortable at your shoulder, but you ignore it, staring up at the star-speckled sky. A bird sings in a tree a little ways away. It must be nearing early morning. Other than that, there’s no sound at all except for the wind in the leaves. 

You take a breath.

“ _Fuck you!_ ”

Something startles uncomfortably close at the noise, but you’re too busy grinding your palms over your eyes to pay it any mind. There’s- something, hot and tight and coiling in your chest, making it hard to breathe in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with the trek up here. Maybe if you cracked open your ribs and pulled it out from between your lungs you would be able to figure out what it is -- tear it apart and watch it bleed until it couldn’t anymore -- but that’s nothing more than a distant daydream when you’ve been trying so _hard_ to not fall apart on your own already. God knows you can’t afford to make it any harder on yourself. Just look at you; five minutes in and you’re already struggling to bite back tears. You’ve always been quick to disappoint. Especially yourself.

“How could--” you start, but your voice cracks, either from disuse or something else, and you bite the meat of your thumb in an attempt to gather yourself. It aches, and you already hate yourself for leaving a mark on this skin, but it works.

“How could you leave me?”

Only an idiot or a fool talks to themself in the middle of the woods at night and is disappointed when they don’t get an answer. The silence that rings out is hollow, choking, and you never stop hoping that it’ll turn out different no matter how many times you do this. It’s killing you, you think.

Good.

“Was all of this not _good enough for you?!_ ” you shriek, volume rising until it hurts your own ears, and you only notice you’re crying because of the trails of heat your tears leave down your face. It’s pathetic, honestly. That doesn’t stop you from kicking your feet against the dirt in something far too close to a tantrum, but you don’t care. You _don’t._ “Was this ending not good enough for you? Was _I?_ ” You choke, but now that you’ve started you couldn’t stop yourself if you tried, words spilling out of your mouth unprompted. “ _Answer me!_ ”

The bird isn’t singing anymore.

The stars shine on as impassively as ever. It’s not fair. Chest heaving, choked sobs escaping your throat with every breath, you roll over until your face is buried in the dirt. Maybe if you’re lucky it’ll swallow you up.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, your lips brushing the earth, “I’m so-- _fuck,_ I can’t-- I can’t do this. Not without you. Please come back.” Stone digging into your stomach, you fist your hands in the grass. “Frisk. _Please._ ”

But nobody--

Ha. As if you ever expected anything else.

You’re an idiot.

Toriel knocks on the door to your bathroom, summoned by the call of the shower turned up as high as it will go. “Frisk?” she says, gently as ever, “Would you like some tea?”

You pause in the middle of scouring matted dirt from your hair. Childishly, you want nothing more than to ask her for a cup of hot chocolate instead, far more of a comfort for the nightmares she thinks have woken you up yet again, but. Frisk doesn’t like chocolate. They would never ask for something like that.

You reach over and knock once on the wall in as much of a yes you can give without using your voice. Whatever she says in return is covered up when you start scrubbing at your hair again. You could probably guess, anyway.

She doesn’t say anything about your red eyes or your rubbed raw face when you shuffle downstairs, slouching over the cup of tea waiting for you at the table. Her presence is quiet, companionable; the sounds of her occasional thougtful hums and the pages of her book as she turns them would be comforting, in most circumstances.

All you can think about is the look on her face if you told her Frisk has been dead since the first sunrise, that she’s been caring for the ghost of a parasite piloting the corpse of her child for longer than she ever cared for Frisk; you can almost see the anguish settling into her features like water, dragging her to drown. Another wound. A new heartache. You hunch further over your tea and let the steam warm your sore eyes.

You fall asleep at the table, and wake just before the alarm.


	2. Chapter 2

“Are you sure you do not want me to go with you?”

The look Toriel gives you is a perfect mix of anxious and concerned, hands clasped in front of her chest. You feel bad for worrying her, but--

_I’m sure._ You readjust the straps on your backpack one more time, getting used to the weight of it on your shoulders. It’s not very large; just enough to contain the small first aid kit she’d insisted upon, and a few things she hadn’t. _I won’t be long. I promise._

“Alright.” A smile eases uncertainly onto her features, but she doesn’t question you further. You’re glad. You know more than anyone that you could have left already, without telling her, or anybody -- you could already be at your destination, no one the wiser until it was too late -- but that’s not what a good child does. That’s not what Frisk does. Even though it won’t matter soon enough, you plan to stick through with this until you don’t _need_ to anymore.

Toriel sinks down to your level. “Promise you’ll try to be careful,” she says, her expression settling into the one she wears when she’s beginning to fret. “I know you can take care of yourself, but. Oh, you know I worry, don’t you? I don’t want you to get hurt.” She pauses, as if to halt her own rambling. A more heartfelt smile takes the previous one’s place. “I love you, Frisk.”

_I promise._ You smile back, half apologetic, half not. _I love you too, Mom._

It’s unclear who initiates the hug. You don’t think it matters. If you linger a second longer than you normally would have, well -- with any luck, this will be the last time you hug your mother as yourself, even if she doesn’t realize it. You think you deserve some allowances.

Mount Ebott is only two hours away from the city by bus. It still feels like too long by far.

The months that followed the breaking of the barrier have only served to further empty the Underground, every passing day luring more and more monsters eagerly into the sun. Not to say that things have been easy, but... it’s undeniable, now. They have hope.

It’s almost enough to make you feel bad for what you’re about to do.

You’re tempted to enter the mountain the faster way, now that you know you’ll survive it without breaking half the bones in your body. The risk is still there, though, and it’s big enough to give you pause, which decides for you. Now isn’t the time for making mistakes. You climb to the top of the mountain without looking down once.

Tracing your steps back to your grave, you find Flowey there as if he was waiting for you.

You’ve been rehearsing what you were going to say for days now, thinking and rethinking every scenario that could possibly play out with each word you say, but you can’t help but pause as you face each other -- a break in the script that, somehow, you never thought to account for. His expression is another matter entirely. The resignation -- too tired to be disappointed -- is something you expected from the beginning. So are the assumptions behind it. He moves as if to speak. You can’t let him go first.

“Asriel.”

Your voice cracks in the middle, jumping up embarrassingly in pitch, but it does what you wanted. He leans back as if in shock. Understandable. This is the first time he’s heard a voice from this body, after all. You take a breath and open your arms, fingers spread, in as pleading of a gesture as you know how.

“I need your help.”

 

 

He stares at you for a second, uncomprehending. “Frisk?”

“Frisk is gone,” you say, practice letting the words leave your tongue without event, even if the way Flowey’s eyes widen would make you think you’ve suddenly spoken another language. “They died months ago. They left me in their body, and I’ve been pretending to be them, trying to find a way to fix everything.”

“Chara?”

“But I can’t load or reset without them. We always did it together, and now that they’re gone there’s nothing I can do.” Ignoring the look on his face, refusing to let his interjection drag you off script, you bring a hand to your chest, barely pausing to breathe. “There’s nothing I can do to bring them back, but- but _you_ can. Now that I don’t, you should have control over the timeline again, and you can load your last save and-- if that doesn’t bring them back you can reset. Don’t you see? You can bring them back. You can save them!” You drag air into your lungs, fingers digging into the blue-striped sweater. “You have to. _Please._ ”

Flowey’s expression falls, slowly, from confusion to shock to hope and then-- something you can’t name. Something worse. It’s too close to nothing at all. 

Flowey says: “I can’t.”

You stare at him. “What?”

“I said I _can’t_ ,” he repeats, more sullenly but still just as firm.

“Of course you can.” It comes out as barely more than a breath. “Have you- have you even _tried--_ ”

“No,” he snaps, breaking you off, “and I’m not going to.”

You were half expecting this. Of course you were. That does nothing to impede the anger rising slowly in your chest like magma, burning your throat from the inside.

“How could you,” you say lowly. Quietly. “After everything they did to save you, how fucking _dare you--_ ”

“Shut up.” He doesn’t even sound mad, is the worst part. He looks like it, though, his glare turning his eyes dark. “That’s _exactly_ why I won’t do it. Would you take a second to think?” You’ve had nearly four months to think. But he hardly gives you enough time to answer, and you grit your teeth as he continues on. “Do you think I’m stupid? Using the resets to start everything over is the exact same power Frisk was trying to stop. I might not be able to feel anything as a flower,” he says, watching as you freeze, “but I can remember exactly how I used to feel. And I won’t betray Frisk like that.” He stops for a second. You don’t try to interrupt. More quietly, he adds, “I won’t betray myself like that, either.”

You can feel something suspiciously like tears beginning to claw from behind your eyes. You refuse to cry here. It’s because he’s right, is the thing; Frisk wouldn’t want you to reset this. They told you, didn’t they? This was going to be the last one. You’d been so happy. If only you’d known _why._

“You’re full of shit.”

“You know,” he says, far too brightly. “It’s kind of funny, finding out you’ve been here the whole time. You could’ve visited whenever! But you only came because you wanted something from me,” he finishes, bitterness finally leaking into his voice, “didn’t you.”

Your answering flinch is as involuntary as it is unwanted. He’s right, again. You could’ve made the trip here the second you had the body to yourself, you could have talked to him -- and you _wanted_ to, is the real kicker; you’ve sat on the ledge of your window with your boots on and cash in your pockets in the middle of the night wishing you could go with everything you had. Just as much as you missed Frisk, you missed your brother, too.

“Frisk wouldn’t have come,” is all you say, voice rasping. “Not yet. They would have given you more time.”

“Chara...”

“I’m sorry.” You can hear the desperation in your own voice, now. You take a step forward. “You know what it’s like. To lose someone. But I’m not- I’m not as strong as you,” you say, Flowey’s expression only growing more and more sad as you close the distance between you two. You kneel down in front of him. “I don’t know what else to _do_ , Asriel.”

“I’m sorry too.” He leans his petals into your hand when you bring it up, and you’re reminded of the times he’d let you pet his ears when you were upset, which was often. He never complained no matter how hard you pulled on his fur. “But you understand why I can’t. Right?”

“Yes.” His relief at the simple word is almost palpable. You tuck it away in the list of instances that make you doubt how little he claims to feel, sometimes. It doesn’t make it any easier. “So you understand why I have to.”

He pauses. It only gives you more time to wrap your fingers around the handle tucked into the back waistband of your shorts. The tricky part of Plan B, you realized on the way here, is how quickly Flowey could move out of reach. Timing is crucial.

The worst part, aside from the lack of resistance you feel where his petals still brush your other hand, is that he doesn’t look surprised.

You twirl your knife up and bring it down hard.


	3. Chapter 3

Flowey stares up at you in something too resigned to be betrayal. His face and yours are illuminated by your soul; a bright, luminescent green that makes your blade gleam.

“Please put the knife down.”

You can’t turn -- can’t move at all, bound by green magic so that all you can do is watch Flowey watch you -- but you know that voice well enough you don’t need to. Your heart thunders in your chest. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You can’t. You _can’t._

“Please,” Alphys says when you don’t move, sounding as far out of her depth as she must feel. “I w-won’t let you go until you do.”

You bite your cheek until you taste blood. It does nothing to stop the wounded noise that leaves you at the sound of your knife hitting the dirt.

Flowey takes the handle of it in his mouth and disappears into the ground, reappearing a couple of feet away, and it’s only then that your soul returns to your chest, released from Alphys’ magic. You turn slowly. She’s standing at the back of the room, tugging anxiously on the sleeves of her lab coat. Neither of you move for a second that seems to stretch forever.

“I heard everything,” she says.

All of your breath leaves you at once.

Your fingers dig into the grass; that’s _you_ down there, you know, and you wonder, since you’re alone in Frisk’s body, if maybe they’re alone in yours. You think you might be getting a bit hysterical. “I’m going to kill you,” you say, the words bubbling over into a laugh you couldn’t bite back if you tried -- or wanted to. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and that, of all things, gets you to your feet, more of a lunge than anything - but your soul is wrenched from your chest before you can get anything near close to her, dragging you to the ground with its weight. You hate green magic. You hate her. You hate Asriel, you hate your mom, you hate everyone who fell for the cheap imitation of your best friend that was all you could offer, you hate-- you writhe where you fell, a frustrated scream tearing itself from your throat as the movement fails to get you anywhere.

“I hate you!” The words literally, physically hurt, this body being so unused to having words forced out at such a loud volume, and your next ones are louder out of spite. “Frisk is dead and nobody fucking _cares_ , nobody fucking noticed, and I’m trying to get them back and you’re not-- you don’t _get it_ , I--” You manage to twist around until you can see her. You think she’s crying. “Let me go!”

She does. You curl up where you fell, folding into yourself. There’s the unmistakable sound of her choking back tears, and you wrap your arms around your head, trying to block out the sound. It doesn’t work as well as you’d hoped.

“Oh, god,” she whimpers. It’s the sound someone makes when their entire world is beginning to fall apart. “Oh god, I- I’m so sorry.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and don’t say anything at all.

 

 

“How did you know I was down here?”

“I-I-I came down yesterday t-to check on the CORE,” she says, pushing her glasses up her nose where she sits across from you on the grass and glancing around at everything but you. She’s far from as close to you as she could be. You think she’s scared of you.

Good.

“I didn’t realize the cameras were still programmed to track you,” she continues, and then winces, as if realizing her mistake, but she at least has the tact to not try and rectify it. “B-but when I saw y-you going down to the Ruins, I thought something seemed...o-off, so...”

“You followed me,” you murmur. She nods. Grinding your palms into your eyes, you take a deep breath; you honestly should have expected this. That someone would follow you down here, even though you did everything else right, and because of your lack of foresight your plan is in ruins and someone _knows_. 

Well. Maybe if you’re lucky, Flowey will realize what’s at stake and LOAD on his own.

You glance around the cavern at the thought, but he’s still nowhere in sight. He disappeared sometime between taking your knife and you losing your shit, and you get the distinct feeling you’re not going to see him again anytime soon. Not while he thinks there’s still the chance you might try and grind him into paste. Smart of him, even if it makes things more inconvenient for you.

It’s not that you _want_ to kill him. It’s just...

Alphys says something you don’t hear, drawing you out of your thoughts. “Sorry, what?”

“I-I said! Um. Are they... are they really gone?” She closes her eyes, looking like she’s fighting back tears again. “F-frisk.”

It’s your turn to look away. You pick at the grass in front of you, not pulling quite hard enough to tear it from the ground. “Do you think I was lying?”

“N-no! Not at all!” She shakes her head in your peripheral, her glasses almost flying off from the force of it. “It’s just... It- it’s hard. To...believe. I d-don’t want it to be true.” She’s quiet for a moment. You don’t look up to meet her gaze. “You know?”

You do know. You know so, so well. And you owe her an explanation, you think, now that you’ve gone too far to be able to take any of this back, but you’ve spent so long denying that this is happening to everyone but yourself for so long that you don’t even know where to start. Just thinking about it almost feels like betrayal. Whether it’s to Frisk, or to yourself, you don’t know. They never wanted their friends to be sad. Especially because of them.

It’s a little late for that, though.

“Frisk died before you ever met them,” you start, so abruptly you startle even yourself. “But in the few seconds before their soul shattered, it called out to me. And I answered. They died on my grave, but in a way, we both came back to life, I guess.” Her eyes flick somewhere behind you at the words, but you don’t turn to follow her gaze. You’ve never really stopped seeing it in the back of your mind; flowers haloed in light from a sun they’d never really see. It’s a bitter irony you can appreciate.

“Our control over their body was split. Just like when...” No. That’s another story. One you doubt she wants to hear any more than this one. Get back on track. “It was their body first, so they used it the most, you know? But then they just sort of...” You shrug, helplessly. “Stopped. I mean, not all at once. It was little things, like, letting me spar with the monsters we encountered, and asking me to talk to other people so they didn’t have to. It was-- a lot of it was me, at the end.”

Your eyes are still the tell-tale scratchy of someone who’s cried recently, from your last tantrum, and you have to pause for a second to run your fingers through your hair and keep yourself from leaking again. The coal of anger stoking in your sternum makes it difficult. 

“It wasn’t-- I didn’t think to ask if something was wrong,” you laugh. “I mean, it- it wasn’t _common_ , but even Frisk would get tired sometimes, and it- they’d never ask outright for me to take over, give them a break, but of course I did anyway, because, _fuck,_ I get it, y’know? And then they just.” You bury your face and your laugh in your hands. “We broke the barrier, and then it was like they just-- gave up.”

Alphys makes a muted, strangled noise, something between a wordless cry of grief and an “oh”. You can relate.

“You know, I kinda thought they were just sleeping at first,” you say. You know you’re starting to ramble now, and you think Alphys knows it too, but she doesn’t stop you, and you’re not sure whether to be grateful or not. “I thought if I gave them enough time they’d bounce back like their usual cheerful self, you know? _Sorry for worrying you Chara, just needed some brainghost R and R, you know how it is_ \-- fuck. Fuck.” You dig your fingernails into your scalp. “I could have done something. I could’ve saved them, and I just- _didn’t._ ”

Alphys doesn’t try to argue with you. Doesn’t say it wasn’t your fault, that you couldn’t have known. You’re suddenly, fiercely glad.

She doesn’t say anything about the tears on your face, and you’re glad for that too. “So you’ve b-been, pretending? Ever since?”

“Well. Yeah.” You shrug again, not saying anything as she wipes at her eyes under her glasses, either. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Tell somebody?” she suggests, almost gently. She pauses at the smile that grows on your face, but to her credit, it doesn’t stop her. “Y-you don’t have to deal with this on your own.”

“Frisk wouldn’t have told anybody,” you say, and something in her expression changes.

“But you’re not Frisk!”

You jerk back. She’s right. You’re not Frisk, and you’ll never _be_ Frisk, no matter how well you might emulate them; for all that she has a point, you can’t help but resent her a little for rubbing it in your face. “I know,” you answer, your voice edged with more than a little bitterness. “That’s the problem.”

Her gaze slides off of you like water. “If... I-I-t -- something about what you said doesn’t make sense. Not th-that I doubt you!” she adds hastily, before you can respond. “It might be nothing, but, um. If you come back to the lab with me, I m...might be able to help.”

You stare at her. “Could you bring them back?”

“All I know is, something isn’t adding up.” She pushes her glasses up her noses again, looking towards the exit like her mind is already in the lab, working the machines. “I don’t know what I’ll find, b-but. At the very least I might be able to offer you some- some closure.”

You stand so quickly she jumps in surprise, scrabbling to her feet to hurry after you as you walk down the hall. 


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing you do is text Toriel, telling her you’ll be spending the night with Alphys. It’s not phrased as a request, and whatever reason she thinks you want to go over so badly for, she doesn’t challenge you. She has a hard time refusing you anything, now.

“Undyne will be gone for a- a while, so you don’t need to worry about disturbing her,” Alphys says, unlocking the garage. Cool air greets you, and you follow her in, not trying to hide your curiosity as you look around the room. It’s...bigger than you expected, and there are at least half a dozen machines you’ve never seen before tucked inside, each with a purpose you could only guess at.

You stay by the door as Alphys skitters over to a huge computer on the opposite wall. “I thought we’d be going to the lab in Hotland,” you mumble.

“I’ve gotten some really good equipment up here,” she explains, the computer in front of her humming to life as she taps some keys on the keyboard. “Much better than I ever could’ve c-come up with by myself in the Underground. Human technology is- is amazing!”

“Mm.”

All hopes of conversation die after that. You don’t miss the sweat beading at the back of her head -- whether that’s just from the almost palpable awkwardness in the room, or because she can feel you watching her, you can’t tell. It’s a relief when she finally pulls a chair out from under the desk, telling you to sit.

“These w-will help me measure the properties of your- your soul,” Alphys says, producing a strap not unlike what human doctors use to measure blood pressure, except this one isn’t connected to anything. You don’t see how it could work, but you roll up your sleeve and give her your arm anyway. You have to suppress a shudder when she velcros it into place; the inside feels a lot like some sort of gel, almost, sticking to your skin, but when you poke underneath it with a finger on your other hand, it comes away dry. Weird.

“Before, I would’ve had to initiate an encounter to bring your soul out,” she says, taping a couple wires to the chest of your sweater when you don’t move away or try to stop her. “But luckily these machines are sensitive enough that they should be able to pick it up normally! I m-mean I-- I hope!” She laughs nervously, turning back to the computer again. “I don’t really k-know any humans, so I haven’t been able to, um, test it out...? But! It works! In theory!!”

Of course. “Is it dangerous?” you ask, only to be answered with another enthusiastic head shake.

“N-not at all! The worst that could happen, is uh...nothing. Haha. It’s not like we’re trying to m-manipulate your soul, or anything.”

“Hm.” You look down at the seemingly slap-dash “equipment” hooked up to you. If you’re being honest, it doesn't really look like much. You can’t help but have a few doubts about whether this will work, if maybe this is just a waste of your time and any hopes you have of getting Frisk back are only drifting farther and farther away. But, then again. Alphys doesn’t look like much, either. And she’s surprised you more than once.

A prickle of warmth comes from the strap around your arm, and Alphys lets out a sigh at the same instant. “There,” she says, giving one last keystroke before turning away from the computer again. “Now all we have to do is wait for the data t-to--”

Both of you jump at the sound of the door opening, breaking Alphys off, and, “hey alph, how’d things go down at theooohhhh hey kid!” Sans pauses in the doorway, looking surprised to see you, but the smile on his face seems genuine. “wasn’t expecting to catch you here.”

You brighten instantly. _Hi Sans!_ You’d jump off your chair to give him a hug, but the wires on your sweater look like they’re connected to something, so you’d rather not risk it. _I’m helping Alphys test out some new equipment. Isn’t it cool?_

“very,” he says, giving it all a critical eye. He doesn’t look uneasy, though.

_How’s Papyrus?_ you ask, kicking your feet a little under your chair. _I heard he got a job but I haven’t been able to ask him about it yet._

That gets a laugh out of him, and he’s quick to take out his phone, scrolling through something. “man, you won’t believe this. well. actually, i’m sure you will. look.” He turns the screen around so you can see it, and you have to cover your mouth with your hand to hide your smile. It’s a snapshot of Papyrus surrounded by at least half a dozen dogs, the same amount of leashes in his hands. The picture is blurry; probably because Papyrus looks like he’s running at full speed, all of the dogs chasing after him.

_Please send that to me,_ you say, giving the photo one last wistful glance before he takes the phone back. _I have a need._

“will do.”

You tilt your head slightly, curious. _Did you come to say hi to Alphys?_

“sure did. which reminds me.” He winks at you before turning to the scientist in question. “everything down at the core turn out ok?”

Alphys doesn’t respond. She’s frozen, staring between the two of you, and Sans’ eyes crinkle a little bit in concern.

“hey, earth to alph,” he says. “something wrong?”

She jumps as if startled, but she shakes her head. Hm. “N-no, it’s...fine. Um. Th-the readings are over here.”

She leads him over to another machine pushed up against the wall, just far enough away that you can’t make out their words. You pick up your pack from where you’d settled it next to your chair, careful not to dislodge anything, and you rifle through it for a moment before pulling out a bottle of water. There’s a couple of granola bars stashed inside too, and you make quick work of the first one. The rest you’ll save for later, you decide.

“frisk,” sans says, and you look up to see him coming back over, Alphys trailing after him. “i’ll see you later, k? don’t do anything i wouldn’t.” He ruffles your hair at that. You stick your tongue out at him. 

You sit your backpack on the floor again when he’s gone, leaning back in your chair. You could probably take a nap right now. There’s no denying you’re tired; you’ve gotten even less sleep than usual the past couple of days, and romping around the mountain hasn’t done you any favors, to be sure. As long as the readings on your soul don’t come in for a little while...

“Y...you’re really good at that.”

You crack open an eye to see her sitting in front of the computer again, tapping away at the keys. You don’t have to ask what she means. She glances over at your hands when they start to move.

_I’ve had a lot of practice._

“Isn’t it- hard?”

You pause. The amount of answers you could give to that are practically endless. You shrug, and pick one. _I’ve always been good at pretending to be something I’m not._

Something in her expression wavers at that. She turns back to the computer, shoulders hunched. “Sans is gone,” she says, an odd note in her voice. “You don’t have to sign anymore.”

You look down at your hands, blinking. You... hadn’t even noticed you’d been signing, still.

“Oh.”

“Isn’t it cruel?” 

You glance back over to her. She still isn’t looking at you. Almost distantly, you note that she hasn’t looked at your face since Sans dropped by. You don’t blame her. You can’t look in mirrors anymore.

You pick at your nails instead of watching her -- a restless fidget you never had before Frisk, funnily enough. “Are you happier than you were when you didn’t know?”

“But you- you’re _tricking_ them,” she says, in something resembling anger. Finally, you think.

“So did Frisk.” You regret the words once you’ve said them, because really, the last thing you want is to smear Frisk’s image when they can’t even try to prove you wrong anymore, but. For a moment, at least, Alphys can’t seem to find anything to say to that. “You said it yourself,” you point out, tone neutral without you trying. “A lie where everyone is happy. A truth like this could only make everyone miserable.They never wanted that.” The bed of your thumbnail has started bleeding from picking at it too hard, and you grimace. At least it’s staying true to them.

“You know them really well,” Alphys says. Her voice is distant. For a moment, you can’t think of anything to say to that, either.

“I loved them.”

You look up at the sound of cloth ruffling just in time to see her glasses clatter to the desk, dislodged as she buries her face in her hands. “I c-c-can’t,” she says, voice cracking under the weight of tears she can’t quite hold back. “I h-hate this, i-i-it-- it isn’t _fair!_ They should n-never h-h-have--”

She cuts herself off, shuddering into her hands, not quite managing to muffle her sobs as she weeps. Something tightens, painfully, in your chest, and you look away. This is what happens. You slip up, just once, and this is what happens: someone who doesn’t deserve to falling apart over a friend they barely ever really knew. You’d go back and fix it, if you could. But you can’t. You can’t fix anything.

You know, now, what the odd note in Alphys’ voice was.

Grief.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’ll take a- a little while for the results to come in,” Alphys had said, checking the window for Undyne’s arrival. _“Just...try not to think about it too much until then, okay?_ ”
> 
> The door had swung open before your _“I’m sorry”_ could leave your lips, but from the look in her eyes, you think Alphys knew what you’d been about to say regardless

“Make sure to keep stirring, dear.”

“Mmhm!”

You have just enough time to catch Toriel’s smile before you turn your attention back to the stove. Butterscotch-cinnamon wreaths up from the pot as you stir the filling currently cooking over the flame, making your mouth water, and it takes nearly all your willpower to not dip a finger inside. The hand-mixer whirs to life behind you; Mom has already shown you how to make whipped cream from scratch, but the mixer is too heavy for you to use yet without being afraid of dropping it.

_“It’ll take a- a little while for the results to come in,”_ Alphys had said, checking the window for Undyne’s arrival. _“Just...try not to think about it too much until then, okay?_ ”

You’d nodded, not knowing what else to say. The sound of tires screeching up the driveway prompted you to think of _something_ , and from the way Alphys had jerked in surprise when you’d tugged on her sleeve, you don’t think she’d been expecting anything at all.

The door had swung open before your _“I’m sorry”_ could leave your lips, but from the look in her eyes, you think Alphys knew what you’d been about to say regardless.

It doesn’t take much longer for the pie filling to thicken over the heat, and Mom carefully pours it over the crust. You get the honor of setting it all in the oven; licking all of the extra stuff out of the bowls is a bonus.

Toriel busies herself with cleaning everything up, but soon enough the kitchen is almost as spotless as it was before you’d started. “Do you have your things ready for tonight, Frisk?” she asks, hanging her apron up on its hook. You take a moment to think before shaking your head in the negative, and she chuckles, ruffling your hair. “Why don’t you go do that, dear. I’ll finish up, and then we can go, alright?”

It doesn’t take very long. The extra jacket is already hanging on the chair next to your desk, and the softer of your spare blankets goes with it into your backpack. Twilight is just beginning to bruise the sky when you and your mom climb into the car. She lets you choose the radio station, like always. 

The hill behind Sans’ and Papyrus’ house is already speckled with blankets when you get there. You’re itching to run over, and Toriel can tell, if the way she chuckles and shoos you off when you try to help her with getting the stuff out of the trunk is any indication. You don’t have to be told twice.

“LOOK WHO’S HERE!” Undyne booms, and it’s not a second later before you find your feet aren’t touching the ground; you shriek in laughter as she twirls you around, and she cackles, only setting you down once your hair has been properly dishevelled from the wind. You sway for a second in the grass.

“What’s up, nerd!” Undyne says, placing her hands on her hips. She bends down at the waist to grin at you, and you smile back, brushing your bangs out of your eyes. “Bring anything special today?”

_Mom and I made some pies,_ you say, and you peer around Undyne to see Toriel approaching from the street, the heavy container of pastries looking like it weighs nothing in her hands. _Did you bring take-out again?_

“Pssht, no,” Undyne scoffs. You follow her over to the huge table set up in the grass, already laden with almost too much food; donuts, casseroles, various pastas, and...

_Pizza?_ You look from the box to the fish monster beside you, and her smile widens.

“Not just any pizza,” she says. “Alphys and I made this one ourselves! We just, you know,” she says, waving a hand dismissively, “couldn’t find something to put it in, so we stuck it in an empty pizza box we had lying around.”

Huh. It’s hard to pick out different scents, everything on the table in front of you already smelling so strongly of _food_ , but you can only wonder if Undyne’s definition of “home-made” matches up with yours. Guess you’ll find out soon enough. 

_Where’s everyone else?_ you ask instead. You set down your backpack on the bench, shuffling through your things.

“Papyrus and Sans said they have something special they wanted to get set up,” Undyne said, “which is pretty suspicious, if you ask me. They wouldn’t even tell me what it was so I could help!” She glowers at the sunset for a minute. You let her get it out of her system. “And Alphys said she needed to use the restroom, so-- wait!” She smacks her face with her palm. “She wanted me to let her know when everyone else got here. I’ll be right back!”

Blinking, you watch her run off into the house, only turning back to your things when you can’t see her anymore. “Wonder what all that’s about,” you mutter to yourself. If you try really hard, you can almost pretend you expected the lack of a response.

“My, everyone outdid themselves tonight,” Toriel says. You look up from where you’d been fitting your blanket into the jigsaw puzzle of everyone else’s things to find her setting the pies down in the one empty space left on the table. You scoot over, and she settles down onto the blanket next to you. 

You lean against her side, like you always do. You find you can’t look at her this time. The feeling in your chest weighs too much like guilt. You fiddle with your fingers instead.

“The sunset is beautiful today,” she says. She chuckles a moment later. “Then again, I say that every day, don’t I? But it’s still true.”

_It’s pretty,_ you offer. Your hands form the next words without even having to think about it. _Just like you!_

“Oh, child!” she laughs. She hugs you closer as she snorts, ruffling your hair, and the sound of your own laughter is muffled by the soft fur of her arm. “You are sweeter than pie.”

Voices spill out from the house behind you. You can pick out the voice of each of your friends, the swell of their chatter too much to untangle the individual words, but you’re too content in your little pocket of warmth to bother sitting up and saying hello quite yet. As it turns out, you don’t have to.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” Papyrus says. He runs past you in the grass.

“Okay?” Toriel says. “Oh. What is that he holding?”

“AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa,” Papyrus replies.

“AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!” Undyne says as she jumps somewhere beside you. “GO GO GO GO GO!!!”

You sit up. It’s hard to see what he’s doing; Papyrus runs almost too fast to believe is possible, and already he’s far enough that he looks more like an oddly shaped blur to your eyes, but you watch as the blur-that-is-Papyrus sets the blur-that-is-a-blur down onto the grass, and then sparks something in his hands.

“-AAAAAAAAA--are you recording?” you hear Undyne say, even as your attention is still occupied by trying to figure out by what the hell is even going on.

“Well, _duh_ ,” Mettaton responds. “There’s no way I’m _not_ getting this delightful action on camera.”

“Whatever is happening,” Toriel interjects, “please tell me he’s doing it for the vine.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“I DID IT!” Papyrus says when he finally crests the hill back to your group. “QUICK, EVERYBODY LAY DOWN!”

You’re confused, and you can tell that Toriel is too, but you seem to be the only two out of the loop, and you shrug before following their lead. This blanket was definitely a good idea; the feeling of the soft fibres under your fingers and on the back of your neck settle something in your chest that seems to draw the evening sky into a new sort of clarity. There aren’t many stars this early, but there are even fewer clouds. You think it has to look like how cotton candy tastes.

And then the sky says hello.

The sparkling letters above you stay suspended in the air for a moment longer before they trail away. Toriel isn’t the only one who gasps, but hers is the loudest voice beside you, and awed murmurs float through the air as lights continue to bloom from nowhere. Blooming like flowers -- literal flowers curling out from an invisible corner, twinkling leaves blowing away in a wind that might actually be real; spirals weaving in and out of each other, pulling each other to pieces until they’re something else and dazzling and new; colors and colors and colors suspended too long and too bright in the sky to be anything else but magic and you almost wonder how they did this before you decide that you don’t want to know, really. This is enough. Just seeing is enough.

You feel like you could reach up and touch it. Maybe you could dip your fingers into the light and guide it to your chest to become a part of you, or let it dissolve in your mouth until the only thing you could taste was sweet. Maybe you’re giving too much meaning to bunch of magic fireworks in the sky. You wish you could tell.

Afterwards, the sound of chatter carries over the table less full of food than it was just a short while ago, across the grass, and you wonder not for the first time if the neighbors ever get bothered by the noise. The stars are out now. You keep finding yourself looking up.

“Um--” comes a voice, jerking you back down to the earth. You blink at Alphys. The crust-corpse of a pizza slice litters the plate in her hands, and she smiles at you uneasily, for all that it still seems genuine. “Um. I think I figured out the plot.”

It takes you a moment before you figure it out. Your heart beats in your fingers. _Did you finish your re-watch?_

“Y-yep! Just in time for the new episode.” Alphys pushes her glasses up her nose. “If you w-want to come over tomorrow, I can tell you my- my theories and we can watch it together.”

_I’ll be there._

“Hey,” she starts. You think she goes to place a hand on your shoulder before thinking better of it and just readjusting her glasses again instead. “I know I might be wrong about what could happen tomorrow, but even if... even if I am, that only means we’ll be one step closer to getting it right. So no matter what happens, don’t lose hope, okay?”

Even as her steady gaze is directed down at her plate and not at you, her eyebrows are furrowed in seriousness, her shoulders set, and a small smile forms on your own face. You wave your hand until she looks up.

_Thanks, Alphys. This show would be a lot harder to keep watching without you to cheer me up._

She ducks her head at that, but she’s blushing hard, and she murmurs something before turning around and making her way back to her seat. You only watch her go for a moment before turning back to your own plate, the slice of pie the only thing left (saving the best for last, as always). You don’t want to feel hopeful about tomorrow. Feeling hopeful means setting yourself up for a harder fall, and by this point it feels like falling is the only thing you know how to do right. It’s hard, though. You want to believe this will work.

You can feel the stars’ eyes on your back for the rest of the evening.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay,” Alphys says, almost too quietly to hear, and then taking a deep, shaky breath, “Okay. Before we do-- before we go _any_ further, there’s something you need to know. It’s, um- this will be dangerous. Very, very dangerous.”
> 
> You are ultimately unsurprised. Considering her words carefully -- considering the machine before you even moreso -- you don’t say anything, for a moment.

The cavern is silent. Empty. You don’t let that discourage you.

“I want to apologize,” you start. Your voice rings out, echoing back. “I want to, but I can’t. I think you could understand that. But...” 

You look down at a crack in the rock floor. You have no idea if your words are reaching their target, if Flowey is even here to listen, but you find it hard to believe that he hasn’t at least seen you come down here; hasn’t followed you to at least see what it is you could be doing. You wish you could tell yourself it doesn’t matter.

You deserve this. Really.

“I _am_ sorry that I didn’t come back sooner. That I didn’t tell you I was here. I--” You stop for a moment. “I missed you. I miss you. And I know I never said it enough, so...” You tug at the hem of your sweater, frowning. “I care about you a lot. That’s why, even if I can’t apologize for last time, I want you to know I won’t try to do it again.”

As if to make a point to yourself, you’d done your best to not practice what you were going to say until you stepped back into the cave, and you only realize how empty of a promise it sounds until it leaves your lips. You resist the urge to wince. What reason have you given him to believe that you’re not lying in the hopes of getting him to lower his guard? Nothing.

“Um. I would leave my knife here so you wouldn’t think I was trying to bullshit you, but you kind of already have it.” You don’t try to stop the amusement from leaking into your voice. It is kind of funny, if you think about it. You shrug. “Just-- remember, when we were kids? I used to play really mean pranks on you, because I thought it would be only a matter of time until you hated me, and if it was going to happen I at least wanted it to be on purpose.” The words leave you easily. Like you’re talking about another person, and not yourself. You guess that’s not far from the truth. “You’d cry afterwards, and I would always think I’d finally done it, but then after a while you’d come up to me and be like, _Chara, what you did really hurt me, and this is why._ ” Your imitation of his voice is a bad one. You kind of like it.

“Anyway, like, I just think it’s fair if you don’t want to do that this time. If you don’t want to give me another chance, or forgive me, or whatever. But I... I hope we can still be friends.”

You count the seconds. Five, twenty, a minute, two.

Nobody comes.

Which is fine. And it is, really, because it’s not as if you can’t keep trying. If you really lost your brother’s company forever, it happened a while ago, but you won’t let today be the day you let him go. Not without a fight.

Turning around, you nearly stab yourself in the foot.

Your knife -- _your_ knife -- is lying in the dirt, blade gleaming, and you only narrowly save yourself from stepping down on it. There’s no sign of how it got here. You know, though, that there’s only one way.

“Asshole,” you say to the empty air, but you know now that he’s listening. Bending down at the knees,you take the handle in your grip. “I love you too.”

You press the flat side of the blade against your palm. The metal is cool on your skin, gleaming a little even in the low light. You wish you could say it gives you comfort to have it back; honestly, you’re not sure whether you feel anything at all for thing. The sentiment behind it, though -- that you can appreciate.

“Why don’t you hold onto this for me.” You slide the blade into the earth. It shifts for a moment when you let it go before finally making up its mind to stay in place. Dusting your hands off on your shorts, you rise back up again. “You’ll keep an eye on it until I come back for it, won’t you?”

There’s a promise in those words, and you let them hang in the air for a moment so the both of you can test their weight. Because you will come back. You owe that to him. Maybe even to yourself.

Something rustles behind you as you exit the cave, but you don’t look back for the fear that if you did, you wouldn’t be able to leave at all.

 

 

“I thought you said your better equipment was up top.”

“W-well, better is subjective, I think,” Alphys replies. She’s too busy flipping through the notebook in her hands to look at you, eyebrows furrowed in thought. The hum of the elevator serves as the backdrop to her words. “I mean, yes, _objectively_ the quality of the material and equipment is better on the Surface, but for what we need, um. Down here is our best shot. It’s all kind of complicated.”

You raise an eyebrow. “True Lab complicated, apparently.”

“Haha, yeah,” she laughs. It’s weak. “Um, here, it’s like--” she folds the notebook under her arm, leaving her hands free to gesture appropriately. “You already know about the difference between human and monster magic, right? Humans have to train to tap into it, but monsters are _made_ of magic. It- it leaks into everything we do. So when humans make something, like, a machine that’s supposed to measure the properties of a soul, it wouldn’t do a-as good of a job as a monster-made machine of the same purpose. And it’s the same for the other way around! It depends on what you’re looking for.

“The thing about monsters too is that um, when we stay in one place, a lot of the time our presence can imbue a place with magic in the same way we do with machines. I mean, machines are just an example, but--”

“I think I understand,” you interrupt. “What we need is something that’s strongly aligned with magic. And while the equipment you have on the surface is good, it wouldn’t be as good as, let’s say, inferior stuff that’s been stewing in magic soup for decades.”

Alphys smiles as the elevator dings, taking up her notebook again as you both step out. “Exactly! You know, you’re really good at this.”

“I’m not,” you object immediately. “I’m just following from what you said.”

She hums in something that might be either allowance or objection of her own, but she doesn’t elaborate on it as she leads the way out of the elevator. You’re expecting her to take you somewhere new; down a corridor or hallway you somehow missed or into a secret room that might hold the key to your realest problem. 

She stops in a place you’re only tangentially familiar with, in front of the dubious machine Frisk was always too unnerved by to stay near long.

“ _This?_ ” you prompt, disbelief clear even to your own ears. She grimaces just slightly.

“I know. It doesn’t really look like much...”

“No kidding,” you mutter, giving the rusted-over shell of the skull-like apparatus a critical look as Alphys fidgets with her sleeves. “We always thought this was broken.”

“Well, you-- technically, you weren’t wrong.”

“So how is this supposed to help?” you ask, looking back to her, only to find she’s still looking at the shambling contraption. The expression on her face is far from anything resembling dubiousness, though. The low light of the underground lab only throws the bags under her eyes into sharper relief, the lines carved out by the soft down-turn of her mouth aging her even further than the sharp angles of her anxiety ever did, and in this moment, the only way you can hope describe her is full of...

Dread.

She looks away. The moment passes as she pushes her glasses up her nose, but an unease still lurks quietly under her skin in a way you’re not sure she’s even trying to hide. “I’ll explain very soon.” She shuffles over to the wall. “But first, let’s go down.”

“Down?” The dark pit under the machine draws your attention into it, and it’s an effort to take a step neither forward nor back. “How?”

“Like this,” she says, and swings out the monitor attached to the wall on an invisible hinge. There’s a switch there, and she flips it, followed by the whirr of machinery long gone unused suddenly coming back to life. Clunk, clunk, clunk.

You look down at the stairs leading down into the darkness. “Wow,” you say. “Okay, that’s kind of fucking awesome.”

The darkness obscuring the bottom floor clears almost like a fog as you descend the stairs, making you wonder if it wasn’t something cast there purposefully. Why this place would be so carefully hidden is something you could only guess at, but at the very least, your hopes of being taken somewhere new haven’t been dashed completely. 

There’s a chair stationed squarely in the middle of the room, haloed on all sides by panels and monitors. You don’t have to look up to know it’s positioned directly under the same machine you saw on the floor above, and it doesn’t take much to guess that this is where you’ll be sitting very soon.

After all this time of trying so hard to do what Frisk would do, say what Frisk would say, _feel_ what Frisk would feel, it’s hard to tell whether some of the things you think are truly from your own mind, or from the projection of Frisk you’ve created within yourself. You think, though, when it comes to the unease making the skin of your arms shiver under your sweater, it doesn’t really matter.

“Okay,” Alphys says, almost too quietly to hear, and then taking a deep, shaky breath, “Okay. Before we do-- before we go _any_ further, there’s something you need to know. It’s, um- this will be dangerous. Very, very dangerous.”

You are ultimately unsurprised. Considering her words carefully -- considering the machine before you even moreso -- you don’t say anything, for a moment. “Dangerous how?” 

“I wasn’t the one to make this,” she starts. “Actually, um, I don’t know _who_ did. But there are notes. A lot of them. It was meant to be a-- an extractor? Like, it was thought that maybe if we could harvest magic from monsters in a way that didn’t harm them, enough could eventually be gathered to break the barrier. But...”

“It went wrong,” you guess. “Or didn’t work.” She winces, just slightly.

“Y-yes. That is to say, it _did_ work, just not in...not in the way they wanted. The few monsters who underwent extraction before it must’ve been shut down just... Um, there’s not actually any notes on them, but I would guess they were....d-destroyed.”

Oh. Looking at the chair before you, you can only wonder where the dust on it came from.

“But those were monsters,” you wonder out loud. “Why do you think it could be the same for a human?”

Silence, for a moment. Two. You look over to the scientist behind you, and by the time your thoughts catch up to you, she’s gone beyond looking like she wants to be anywhere but here.

“...The human souls,” you say.

She rubs her eyes under her glasses. “That was all me. There were so many things w-wrong with what I did, but- but morals have a tendency to bend when you feel like th-there’s no other way. Heh...” 

You almost wish you could judge her. You can’t, though. “What happened?”

“The extractor is meant to extract, well, magic,” she says, walking over to a panel that seems to be the main section of it all. “And human souls have one defining trait that makes theirs different from monsters. Special.”

“Determination,” you supply.

“Yes! Exactly. But instead of- of extracting the Determination from the souls I tested it on, it seemed to trigger a...a flux, is all I can call it? They _filled_ with Determination.” For a second, she sounds excited. And then she pauses, and looks at you, and the dread is back again. “And then they shattered.”

“What,” you say. “But the souls-- I _saw_ them,” you protest, and she shakes her head.

“No, no they- they didn’t disappear. They shattered, but I think the Determination, it-- it kept them from disappearing completely. It fused the souls back together. As if... As if nothing had ever happened.” Another moment of silence passes before she removes her hand from the panel. Her fingers are streaked with black dust. “That said, um... I have no idea if this will work with you. Your soul is still attached to your body. Either it’ll work, nothing will happen, o-or um. I’ll have some new notes to write.”

You bite the inside of your lip. “There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” you start. “How is this supposed to bring Frisk back.”

“Oh! Right, s-sorry, I almost forgot. It um... Well, your soul is technically Frisk’s, isn’t it?”

You blink at her. She looks back at you.

“Uh...yeah,” you say, “it’s Frisk’s. I’m just sort of hitching along.”

“So if Frisk were actually dead,” she prompts, “wouldn’t that mean their soul should have shattered with them?”

Oh.

She’s right. You never, ever thought about it, but she’s right. You’d always sort of assumed that their soul had become yours in the plural, but. In truth, no silly contract made at the end of the universe could change ownership of a soul. Not really.

The thought that they were never dead in the first place -- just dormant, buried, faded behind their own lack of will -- almost makes the room spin. You remember every curse you thought at them. You wonder now if they could hear it.

“Something like this will- it should boot them back t-to the forefront,” she continues. “I-if it goes well.”

“I want to try,” you say, squaring your shoulders as best you can. “I have to. I don’t care how dangerous it is.” (The part of you that’s always Frisk protests quietly. They wouldn’t do something so dangerous without the failsafe of a load. If things went south, wouldn’t it hurt Alphys? Hurt their family?) You swallow thickly. “If there’s even a chance it can bring Frisk back, I have to at least try.”

When Alphys smiles, it’s weary. Tired. But there’s hope there, too.

“I had a feeling you would say that.”

 

 

A thought occurs to you as Alphys straps you in. The restraints are too thin to be called that, but your mind can’t help but draw the connection.

“If something bad happens,” you say, “something we can’t fix. Find Flowey. Please don’t get angry with him if he can’t, but he might be able to help.”

The look she gives you is questioning, but all she does is nod. “I will. L-let’s hope I don’t have to though, yeah?”

“Of course.”

She adjusts the chair again. Once. Twice. Three times. You let her fuss, mostly because it’s the least you owe her, and when she finally stands back up one last time, sweating and twitchy, you stop her only for a second. 

“Alphys,” you start. You have to pause, words escaping you for a moment. “Alphys, I- I want to thank you. And also apologize. You’ve done so much to help me -- us -- and this never should’ve been your problem to fix.”

She balks for a moment. And then she smiles, in a way you easily recognize as self-deprecating in the best way. “Y-you really shouldn’t be thanking me. A lot of why I’m helping is for my own selfish reasons. If anything, I should be telling you n- _not_ to do this.”

She has a point, you guess. You can say it’s not too late to back out as many times as you want, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. 

“Well, I’ll just apologize then.” You smile in nearly the same way she did. “You were right, back when we first started. All I’m good at is being cruel.”

“No,” she starts, regret striking her features like a blow. But despite what you might’ve expected, she doesn’t protest further; just shakes her head and turns away. For a moment, that’s all she does. And then, “I think we both have some things to apologize for.” She looks back at you again. “B-but I also think actions speak louder than words.”

You grip the soft fabric of the chair’s arms tight. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

 

 

As the machine hums, coming back to life for the first time in years, you think about rollercoasters.

The safety bar shifting loosely against your chest. Wheels clicking against the tracks. Gravity pressing you back against your seat as you began the slow crawl upwards. And the _knowing._ Knowing that you’re stuck. That you are trapped. You’re lying in the bed you made and there’s no choice but to sleep and wait for the next nightmare to be over.

Strapped into the chair of the extractor machine as its hum begins to grow in volume, you can only think of rollercoasters and learning you were terrified of heights.

And then the fall.

Something in your chest jerks. It jerks, and you know immediately that something is going very, very wrong, but you can’t tell Alphys to stop; the humming is loud, so loud, and the only thing you can hear anymore is your heartbeat in your ears.

“Your” heartbeat. That was never true, was it?

Death has pulled tight around your neck so many times that to call it intimately familiar would be an understatement. It hurts. The pain is familiar, too. But no matter how many times you die, no matter how many times you come back, the feeling of _wrong wong wrong_ isn’t something that you think will ever get easier to bear. No matter how many times you come back, the thought that you should’ve stayed gone isn’t something you think will ever stop ringing through your head.

You look up.

You’re tempted to enter the mountain the faster way, now that you know you’ll survive it without breaking half the bones in your body. The risk is still there, though, and it’s big enough to give you pause, which decides for you. Now isn’t the time for making mistakes.

You climb to the top of...

...

Haha.

The backpack drops to the ground, the things Toriel had insisted upon and the things she hadn’t clattering against each other inside of it as you sink to the dirt, covering your face with your hands. _This isn’t real,_ you think to yourself. _This isn’t real._ You repeat it over, and over and over and over and over and still the sun beats down on your back like a death sentence. The past couple weeks dissipate like smoke into the future they could become. Nothing more. Just smoke, and a possibility.

Nothing but a dream, and a heart too good to be yours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and....that's it! 
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who's stuck with this story! hope you liked it! (:


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